professional organizer Donna Smallin believes "getting organized" is right up there with "losing weight" for top New Year's resolutions.

In fact, she says, organizing is losing weight - generally hundreds of pounds of stuff you do not need. While today is National Clean Off Your Desk Day, all of January is designated by the National Association of Organizing Professionals (NAPO) as Get Organized Month.

The new year is a perfect time to clear off the kitchen table, see what is in your cupboards, straighten the book shelves, clean out your file cabinets and consider the dreaded garage.

How? One minute at a time. "In one minute, you can toss promotional items or freebies you do not use. In five minutes, you can organize a sock or a junk drawer," Smallin says in an interview from her home office in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The minutes add up. Five minutes a day is 35 minutes each week.

"If you spend 15 minutes each day putting things away and throwing out what you do not need, it amounts to seven hours a month. You won't even miss the time," she says.

No one knows how many people decide to "get organized" each year. But last year, home storage sales totaled $4.36 billion, an 8 percent increase from sales in 1999, according to the January 2004 Housewares Census from HomeWorld Business. There are storage solutions for every space in your house, like under the kitchen sink.

But buying expandable files, color-coded folders and wire shelves that accommodate plumbing is only a part of getting organized. And Salt Lake area professional organizer Jamie Tabish acknowledges it is not the biggest part.

"The biggest thing is to identify where the problem lies and focus on it. If it is a big problem, like a kitchen, divide it into smaller parts. Allow enough time to complete the project before starting another," she says.

The National Association of Organizing Professionals, boasting more than 2,000 members, understandably advocates professionals. For one thing, a professional is not as attached to your stuff as are you are. And then there is the probability that the professional went into the field because he or she likes it and is good at it.

There are about a dozen listings for "Organizing Products and Services" along the Wasatch Front, and many specialize. Take brothers Charlie and Ben VanOtten at PremierGarage of Sandy.

"We have seen bad garages and worse garages," Charlie VanOtten says. "When you see garages stuffed with boxes and cars parked outside, you know they never are going to get rid of the boxes. But other people can be helped."

PremierGarage specializes in coating garage floors (a double garage under $1,000) and cabinets and overhead storage.

"We give an estimate and let people think about it. By the time they call us back, they usually have taken the stuff out of the garage and are ready to go."

While the VanOtten brothers saw a need and decided to fill it, Tabish needed organizational skills to keep papers and medical records straight in her own life. It was a learning experience. She acknowledges that the first blush of organizing enthusiasm can degenerate rapidly without a plan.

Take kitchen drawers as an example. Tabish begins with making separate piles: things to keep, things to donate, stuff to toss out and things to be put where they belong.

"We tend to get distracted," she warns. "Do not stop to put something away, like a needle and thread which belong in the sewing area. Wait until you have the pile of things to be put away."

While Tabish accepts the sometimes puzzling affection her clients have for stuff, Smallin was not reared to be a "collector."

"We didn't have much [growing up] like the kids today. I'm uncomfortable when there's a lot of stuff around," she says. And she believes in "uncluttering."

Tabish agrees, but, in the words of client Carolyn Ershler, "Jamie says it is all right to make room for the things you really love."

For Ershler, a collector of books with a family that "tends to collect everything," cleanliness was essential; tidy was an option. And she does love those books.

"But finally, it became too much for me," Ershler says. "I needed help. Jamie looked around the house. It is fairly large, but it is hard to function without good systems in place. The breakthrough came when we decided to re-do the floors. It is a move-out experience. We had to sort everything and put it in boxes."

When the unpacking began they started with the kitchen. Ershler agreed that "no one needs five cheese graters."

And then there are the books.

"I had to say to myself, 'This much room for my fiction, and no more,' " she sighs.

While the Ershler home remains a work in progress ("We found a space for my needlework," Ershler marvels), Tabish says maintenance is essential.

"Once anything is in place where you can use it, it must be contained there. It takes a little time every day," she says.

Another client, John Erlacher, principal of Mountain View Elementary School, had trouble making his desk work correctly.

"I didn't know where to file things and didn't know enough about what I needed to ask an assistant to help," he says. An acquaintance invited friends to an informal organizing "seminar" with Tabish.

First she came to Erlacher's office and watched the way he used his desk.

"It was helpful to see what I was not doing well. Now I have a place to put everything and I only handle paper once. I keep grade-level meeting notebooks and add information to them without filing it somewhere first."

While getting organized can make your life easier, there can be trade-offs. Erlacher and his wife no longer share a home office - their organizing styles are just too different. But "we are making inroads," he says. As for the Ershler home, it is notable for the absence of lamp tables and other horizontal surfaces.

"We bought standing lamps, and got rid of the tables. There is no place to put stuff except the floor. And the rule in our house is 'If your stuff is on the floor, you have to put it away,' " she says.

Organizing Products: A sampling

Overwhelmed by lack of storage? Have you tried the attic? Lindsey Hahn did. He fell off an attic truss and put a foot through the kitchen ceiling. "More than once," Hahn, the inventor and president of AtticDek Company, admits. His solution: prefabricated, 2-pound plastic panel squares that screw into attic floor joists, creating flooring or a pathway to hard-to-reach spaces. "All you need is a power drill," Hahn says. Panels come in 16-inch and 24-inch squares. The smaller squares are sold in packs of four and the larger in packs of two, screws included. Suggested retail price is $24.95. http://www.amazon.com, http://www.atticdek.com

Rubbermaid offers a "Classic" closet kit that will complete a 4- to 8-foot closet and comes with an adjustable hang rail, rail covers, upright wall mounts, brackets, adjustable shelves and expandable hang rods for about $220. Accessories, $9 to $50, are available.

http://www.rubbermaid.com

Worried about filing financial records and important documents? Salt Lake professional organizer Teresa Scott, Life Plans, Inc., has a "birth to death" organizer. It includes a seminar about what documents you need to gather and how to set guidelines. Scott describes the organizer as a "straight-forward, fill-in-the-blank" product. It sells for about $125. Call 801-860-7526.

Try using a new online personal shopping software and service called Personal Shopper. Public relation sources say the service is like "having a personal assistant," and will help take the stress out of your day. See what you think.

http://www.personalshopper.com

For a quick fix, Duck brand has plastic bag savers ($4); shelves ($10); under-sink shelves ($15); and non-adhesive shelf liners ($10).

http://www.duckproducts.com

Organizing should be simple. Things need to be put in logical - to you - places. And they should always be put in the same place.

Some general rules to make your life easier immediately:

l Start today. Designate a place to put your keys (cell phone, sun glasses, etc.) and put them there.

l Hang up your coat. If you change clothes and shoes, hang your clothes (or put them in, not next to the laundry basket) and put your shoes in the closet. Neatly.

l Decide what you are going to wear tomorrow before you go to bed tonight.

What the experts have to say:

Patty Grenda, president of G4 Publishing and creator of The Family Planner (http://www.thefamilyplanner.com):

l Create a master list including the problem areas and the specific details of what you intend to accomplish for each room.

l If the project is too big for you to tackle yourself, hire a professional organizer or ask family or friends, or both, for help.

l For great tips, research the topic of organization by reading books from experts or visiting Web sites on the subject matter.

l Make the toughest room first priority.

l Sort through your clutter and categorize it into specific groups, such as garbage, rummage sale, storage, etc.

l Put the piles of clutter into bags or boxes. Then make sure to label each package with the appropriate classification.

l After your goals have been achieved, reduce future clutter by always putting things back where they belong when you are finished using them.

l Be realistic and realize you have limitations, and you are not a superhero.

Donna Smallin is a professional organizer and author of several books on the subject, including The One-Minute Organizer, Plain & Simple (Storey Publishing, $9.95):

l Take this organizing thing one day and one step at a time.

l Break it down, one 15-minute project at a time. Start with your shoes. Clean a drawer while watching television.

l Understand your motivation. What do you gain from getting organized? What do you lose if you don't?

l How do you contribute to the clutter in your life? Accept the fact that you are part of the problem and you are on your way to changing that behavior.

l Create a one-month plan. Choose five things you most want to accomplish from highest to lowest priority. Be specific.

l This is not a one-time deal. It is ongoing, and always easier when you have less stuff.

l When you are uncluttering, ask yourself if you could get a copy of something fairly easy? If so, let it go. You probably will never miss it.

l You should have a box where you save things such as old theatre tickets. That is fine. But you should go through that, too. Sometimes they are not as important to you as you thought.

Charlie VanOtten, PremierGarage of Sandy (http://www.premiergarage.com):

l Unclutter. Throw away things you do not use or that are broken.

l Sort. Keep things together that belong together by putting items in totes with lids and labels.

l Install cabinets for items used daily and for closed door storage of totes and seasonal items. Install a wall organizing system for garden tools and sporting equipment.

l Organize tools, sporting equipment, garden tools, etc., by how often they are used and what time of the year you are going to use them.

l Keeping the area maintained is the easiest part. Now that everything has a place, you should try to keep it there.

Peter Walsh, organizer on The Learning Channel's popular "Clean Sweep" program and author of How to Organize Just About Everything (Free Press, $25):

l Hold a post-holiday neighborhood garage sale. Turn unused holiday decorations, unwanted gifts and household clutter into cash by selling the items you no longer need in your home. Extend the holiday spirit by donating the funds to a charity.